Attendance

Good attendance is essential if students are to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the school and develop appropriate skills and knowledge that will equip them for life.

Responsibilities of students

Hand in personal items on arrival at school

Attend every day unless ill or authorised absent.
Arrive in school on time.
Go to all registrations and lessons on time.
Take responsibility for registering at the reception desk if late or leave the school site during school hours.

Responsibilities of parents/carers

Inform the school on the first day of absence
Discuss with their child’s Key Worker any planned absences well in advance
Support the school and the child in aiming for 100% attendance each year
Make sure that any absence is clearly accounted for by telephone on the first and subsequent days of absence, or by letter if a phone is unavailable
Avoid taking the child out of school for non-urgent medical or dental appointments only request leave of absence if it is for an exceptional circumstance.

Recording attendance

Legally the register must be marked twice daily. This is once at the start of the morning session 8.45am, and again for the afternoon session at 11.50.

Home tutored students will receive a B (educated offsite) registration mark for each session attended. This information will be supplied to the attendance officer by the home tutors every day.

Lateness/punctuality

It is important to be on time at the start of the morning and afternoon school sessions and to lessons. The start of school/lessons is used to give out instructions or organise work. If your child is late they can miss work time with their class teacher, fail to receive vital information or cause disruption to the lesson for others. Lateness can also be embarrassing, which may lead to further absence.

The school day begins at 8.45am and all students are expected to be in school at this time.

Morning registration is at 8.45am and it closes at 9.15am.

All lateness is recorded daily. This information will be required by the courts, should a prosecution for non-attendance or lateness be necessary.

Arrival after the close of registration will be marked as unauthorised absence and coded U in

line with Hampshire County Council and Department of Education guidance. This mark shows them to be on site, but is legally recorded as an absence.

If a student is late due to a medical appointment, they will receive an authorised absence, coded M. Please be advised that, where possible, doctors and dentists appointments are to be made outside of school hours or during school holidays.

Students who are consistently late are disrupting not only their own education but also that of the other students. On-going and repeated lateness is considered as unauthorised absence and will be subject to legal action.

What to do if my child is absent?

First day absence

A child not attending school is considered a safeguarding matter. This is why information about the cause of any absence is always required.

If your child is absent you must:

If your child is absent we could:

Telephone you on the first day of absence if we have not heard from you – this is because we have a duty to ensure your child’s safety as well as their regular school attendance.

Third day absence

If your child is still absent on the third day, we will either:

Send a letter asking you to contact the school that day
Send home a member of staff to make home visit
Invite you in to discuss the situation.

Please note: If your child is not seen and contact has not been established with any of the named parents/carers, after three days of absence the school is required to start child missing in education procedures as set down by Hampshire County Council guidance. We will make all reasonable enquiries to establish contact with parents/carers and the child, including making enquiries to known friends, wider family and home visits by support staff.

Attendance Leaflet